Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

Harold:

> >
> > Whereas in English, the grammatical form indicating a question is the 
> > word order, that is not true in B-Hebrew. However, Bryan has shown that 
> > certain word constructs counterindicate questions, even the understanding 
> > of a statement as a question, among those the particular word structure 
> > found in Proverbs 5:16. There is no grammatical indication that it is a 
> > question, and I see no need to read it as a question.

> HH: The context shows that Prov 5:16 is a question. There can be 
> grammatically unmarked questions in Hebrew. This is probably the last 
> comment that I am going to make on this thread, since I am just repeating 
> myself.
>
> 
>                                       Yours,
>                                       Harold Holmyard

Look again at the context in Proverbs 5, which you summon as your witness and 
support. The context is that of one wife that is for the person alone. Verses 
15-19 refer to the married state, verse 20 to someone not one's wife.

Now what are "your springs" (plural) that are dispersed abroad? Doesn't this 
contradict the single well and spring that is one's wife? How does this 
plural of springs fit in a context talking about a singular one? It is this 
very context, which I know only from Hebrew, that makes all the translations 
you have referrenced wrong.

If we insist that M(YNTYK is a plural belonging to the student, the context 
makes sense if one reads it as a rare but grammatically allowed simple plural 
of "eyes" with a prefixed M- and the idea that what is not one's wife is 
dispersed abroad, the opposite of held tightly, namely the channels of water, 
i.e. other women. This also fits the context of the other statements in 
Proverbs that deal with sexual relations with women.

While it is good to attend to what others have said in the past, I don't 
think that a slavish adherence to tradition or what others say is the proper 
way to study a text. That is especially true in passages that are difficult 
to read as is this one. In that tradition I include the Masoritic points, 
which while I think they are correct as indicators of meaning maybe 99% of 
the time, they are wrong often enough that in passages that are difficult to 
impossible to read without adding or subtracting from the text, the points 
also can be questioned. For me the consonental text is primary, all else can 
and may be questioned. 

Karl W. Randolph.
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